World Magnetic 2010 Sydney

Metallica Sydney Acer Arena 18th September 2010

[Can't Get The Pics Uploaded. Annoying.]

Had the privilege to go see Metallica, one of the Big Four Bay Area Thrash Metal Legends. Opening bands were The Sword which existence I never knew of and Fear Factory, a very influential band and a legend in it's own right.

Doors opened very early and The Sword came on at 7-ish, played probably around 5 songs. Fear Factory followed suit, playing around 7 to 8 songs. I have never really listened to Fear Factory prior to this concert, but they were good. Heavy ala chug-chug power chords and noodly riffs coupled with blast beats would make any metal aficionado move his or her head in a up-down fashion, how can one complain? Don't really remember the titles of the songs, but from the top of my head, they played "Self Bias Indicator", "Fear Campaign" "Powershifter".

When Fear Factory finished their set, the engineers got busy for about half and hour, the lights went dark, and Acer Arena came to life.

Metallica's set started out with "This Was Your Life". Twas rather amusing as well as dramatic, with the whole stadium in darkness and James Hetfield singing the verse under the spotlight, and finishing, light goes off only to reappear at another random spot on the stage continuing the next verse or chorus. Stellar opening with laser beaming all across the stage from 4 monolithic coffins dangling from the ceiling.

For the next one and a half hours, Metallica made it evident that they are one of the best Metal bands ever, playing a few songs from their latest album, but more importantly not forgetting to play their classics. The set list in chronological order for the night:

1. This Was Your Life
2. End Of The Line
3. Fuel
4. Fade To Black
5. Broken Beat Scarred
6. The Four Horsemen
7. Sad But True ( I can't believe I didn't know this song, after listening to Black Album countless times but manage to mishear this as Take Control. Ironically, it's sad but true. Clearly I'm not a very good fan. In my defense I listen more to the guitars than the lyrics.)
8. Sanitarium
9. All Nightmare Long
10. One
11. Master Of Puppets
12.Fight Fire With Fire
13. Nothing Else Matters
14. Enter Sandman
15. Breadfan (Would have prefered if they did Am I Evil by King Diamond like they did in Melbourne)
16. Hit The Lights
17. Seek And Destroy

There were a few odd moments throughout the night. James Hetfield can say very weird things. "Do you life the new album? You better..." and "You make us feel good" were just a few to mention. And throughout the night, Lars Ulrich acted like a drummer who was all too hungry for recognition (Just my honest opinion. A drummer should just stay behind the drums until the set is done.) There was also flames going up all over the stage with it's warmth reaching me all the way up on the Upper Concourse, which is apt for "Fuel". And black balls dropped from the top for the closing song "Seek and Destroy", causing chaos off and especially on the stage, with these black balls knocking off mics and hitting equipment causing the roadies to hustle around try to prevent destruction of equipment. Clearly they didn't think that one through.

It was a good long night. And got too see Kirk Hammett play live, on his pretty ESPs. Shame that I couldn't be on the floor, and I guess I should have learned up more lyrics, but I'm thankful that I've manage to check them out live. I confess I'm not he most metal of fans, heck I don't even have my long hair anymore,but Metallica was one of the first bands I listened to and led to my preference for music with a heavier flavour and for that I'm in debt.

Thanks to Aron for asking me to go along.